BLE in industry

[IoT]

Hello all,

Has someone used BLE (and nrf5) in an industrial context (e.g. industrial automation)?

What are the possible drawbacks?

Thanks!

[Dave_couling]

I'm not sure what information you are looking for, as I don't know you're exact application. But the common BLE drawbacks are:

1. Range: BLE's reliable range is about 30ft

2. Security: Bluetooth is inherently not a very secure protocol

3. Data Rate: There is a lower data rate when compared to other protocols

For certain applications, the above items are not an issue and BLE is the best option.

[ovrebekk]

Hi Dave

I agree with your first point. 2.4GHz technologies have relatively short range, and the signals are also heavily affected by the presence of metals and water, which can be an issue in a industrial setting.

On point 2 I agree that BLE has had security issues in the past, but the introduction of asymmetric key exchange in BT4.2 closed the hole that made BLE bonding insecure in earlier spec versions. Once you are bonded a BLE link is practically unbreakable (it will be a long time until 128-bit AES/CCM encryption can be brute forced in any kind of realistic time frame), and if you use the LE Secure Connection feature the bonding can also be made secure.

Combined with the extended range made available in BT5.0 this might make BLE more viable for industrial application in the future, but I expect consumer products to remain the primary focus for BLE.